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30. 'Candide,' Voltaire (1759) - The satirical novel is generally considered the French Enlightenment philosopher's greatest work. It follows a young man called Candide's disillusionment with life as he witnesses its suffering and hardships.

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29. 'Aesop's Fables,' Aesop (late to mid-6th century BCE) - Aesop's fables come from oral stories that were collected over many centuries. The most famous of these include the tales of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare,’ ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf,’ and ‘The North Wind and the Sun.’

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28. 'Wide Sargasso Sea,' Jean Rhys (1966) - Rhys was a Dominican-born British writer whose novel was written as a prequel to Brontë's ‘Jane Eyre.’ The story is about the life of Rochester's first wife “Bertha,” who grew up in Jamaica and whose original name was Antoinette Cosway, before she went mad.

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27. 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Harper Lee (1960) - Told from the viewpoint of a young girl Jean Louise Finch, Lee's novel deals with themes of racial tension and sexual assault. The book won the Pulitzer prize and is widely taught in schools across the US.

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26. 'War and Peace,' Leo Tolstoy (1865-1867) - The effect of the French invasion of Russia is told through in this work about the lives of five aristocratic Russian families. Though there is no main hero or heroine of Tolstoy’s book, the open-hearted Natasha, who falls in love multiple times, stands out as a central character.

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25. 'Water Margin,' attributed to Shi Nai'an (1589) - In Chinese literature, this is considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels. It is the fictional retelling of the gathering of 108 outlaws in the hills, who are there to escape harsh feudalist realities during the Song dynasty.

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24. 'Pride and Prejudice,' Jane Austen (1813) - The lives of the five Bennet sisters are immortalized by Austen, who tells their triumphs and failures in the quest for love with a satirical poke at the strict rules of Georgian society. The romance of brooding Mr. Darcy and lively Elizabeth Bennet has inspired love stories around the world, from Bollywood's ‘Bride and Prejudice’ (2004) to ‘Bridget Jones's Diary.’

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23. 'Crime and Punishment,' Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866) - Dostoevsky’s novel tells the story of a poor student living in Saint Petersburg who is compelled to murder an old woman, as he believes this will solve his financial troubles. The story portrays a psychological exploration of sin, guilt, and absolution.

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22. 'Journey to the West,' Wu Cheng'en (circa 1592) - This book chronicles the 16-year pilgrimage of Chinese monk Hsüan-tsang (also spelt Xuanzang) to Central Asia and India in search of sacred Buddhist scriptures. He is accompanied by animals in the trials and tribulations he experiences on his journey.

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21. 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms,' Luo Guanzhong (1321-1323) - The importance of Guanzhong’s work to Chinese culture has been compared to that of Homer’s epics to the West, as per Goodreads. The monumental Ming dynasty tale is set at the end of the Han dynasty and portrays the overriding cyclical nature of Chinese history.

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20. 'Madame Bovary,' Gustave Flaubert (1856) - Flaubert's first novel about the whimsical Emma Bovary shocked French society when it was published, resulting in a trial accusing it of obscenity. This only served to give the story more publicity—the following year it became a best seller.

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19. 'Jane Eyre,' Charlotte Brontë (1847) - Originally published under the pseudonym "Currer Bell," the novel of Charlotte Brontë (pictured) follows the love story between heroine Jane Eyre and the surly master of Thornfield Hall Mr. Rochester. A massive house fire, mad wife, and failed wedding ensue before the two eventually come together for good.

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18. 'Animal Farm,' George Orwell (1945) - This allegory on the Russian Revolution of 1917 and overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II follows the story of animals who get rid of their farmer and impose their own form of self-government. Their supposedly fairer rules of society end up as "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

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17. 'Ulysses,' James Joyce (1922) - The modernist novel draws parallels to Homer's ‘The Odyssey’ as it follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, Ireland. A mixture of writing styles from different periods of English literature among other factors have led some to declare it one of the hardest books to finish, according to The Guardian.

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16. 'The Handmaid's Tale,' Margaret Atwood (1985) - Atwood's book is set in a dystopian new future, somewhere in New England, where women are subjugated to serve the needs of the patriarchy. It has most recently been adapted into a popular American TV show.

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15. 'Harry Potter' series, J. K. Rowling (1997-2007) - Surely we’re all familiar with the adventures of famous scarred wizard Harry Potter, and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. These three get pretty skilled at wand work, mystery solving, and broomstick flying as they battle to vanquish Lord Voldemort once and for all.

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14. 'The Epic of Gilgamesh,' author unknown (c. 22nd-10th Centuries BC) - Written about 1500 years before Homer wrote his epic poems, 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' chronicles the heroic stories of the King of Uruk, as per History on the Net. The Sumerian poems come from ancient Mesopotamia and were carved on clay tablets that were discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853.

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13. 'Romeo and Juliet,' William Shakespeare (1597) - It seems that William Shakespeare's tragedies were more influential than his comedies! The doomed story of teenage lovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet has inspired numerous adaptations for the screen and stage.

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12. 'The Divine Comedy,' Dante Alighieri (1308-1320) - The 14th century Italian narrative poem tells the story of Dante's trip through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in the afterlife. Along the way he meets Virgil, the famous Roman poet, and Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman. This allegory of human absolution looks at questions of desire, enlightenment, and faith, and is arguably one of the world's greatest literary works.

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11. 'Beloved,' Toni Morrison (1987) - Set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, ‘Beloved’ tells the story of a former slave mother (Sethe) and her daughter. Their home is plagued by the presence of a ghost believed to be Sethe's murdered daughter, who she must learn to overcome. The novel won the Pulitzer prize for Fiction in 1988 and was made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998.

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10. 'The Iliad,' Homer (8th Century BC) - Written after, but set before ‘The Odyssey,’ Homer's ‘Illiad’ tells stories from the Trojan War, including the famous tale of the Trojan Horse. Like ‘The Odyssey,’ the epic poem is written in dactylic hexameter.

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9. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' Gabriel García Márquez (1967) - Márquez’s magical realism work follows the story of seven generations of the Buendía family in the mythical town of Macondo. Through fortune and misfortune, the story portrays the idea that time is circular and that omens from the past do come true.

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8. 'Hamlet,' William Shakespeare (1603) -

Shakespeare's famous tragedy, at the end of which almost everyone seems to be killed, sees Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, battle with deep questions on life and mortality as he tries to avenge his father's murder.

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7. 'Don Quixote,' Miguel de Cervantes (1605-1615) - The world would be a much poorer place without the stories of whimsical nobleman Don Quixote and his stalwart companion Sancho Panza. The duo roam the land attacking windmills, rescuing imaginary princesses, and getting into futile fights. Cervantes' Spanish Golden Age novel was a point of departure for many other classic works of literature that came later.

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6. 'One Thousand and One Nights,' various authors (8th-18th Centuries) - Commonly known as ‘Arabian Nights,’ this is a plethora of stories from all over the Middle East. The tales of "Aladdin, Ali Baba," and "Sinbad the Sailor" are perhaps the most famous in the Western world, although these were apparently added by European translators at a later date.

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5. 'Things Fall Apart,' Chinua Achebe (1958) - Chinua Achebe describes typical life in pre-colonial Nigeria in this famous novel, which follows the decline of protagonist Okonkwo and his fictional clan Umuofia due to the arrival of the British and Christian missionaries in the country.

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4. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,' George Orwell (1949) - This dystopian novel by English author George Orwell was the inspiration behind reality TV series ‘Big Brother.’ Set in a futuristic world where the population is constantly watched by security cameras, the 1949 book strikes chilling similarities with the constant monitoring society is subjected to in the present day.

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3. 'Frankenstein,' Mary Shelley (1818) - ‘Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus’ was written by Shelley when she was a guest of Byron's on Lake Geneva in 1816. It was proposed that each guest should write a supernatural tale, and Shelley wrote about a young scientist who accidentally gives life to a creature following an extreme scientific experiment involving a collection of bones.

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2. 'UncleTom's Cabin,' Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) - Harriet Beecher Stowe penned this book in a pre-Civil War America. Her anti-slavery novel came in reaction to her encounters with fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad that helped them escape plantations in the south. Her book has often been said to have paved the way for the outbreak of war between the northern and southern states in 1861.

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1. The Odyssey, Homer (8th century BC) -

The famous Greek epic poem was written by Homer, and tells the story of Odysseus' 10-year journey to return to his kingdom Ithaca, his wife (Penelope), and his son (Telemachus) after the Trojan War. Along the way, he is thwarted and aided by Greek gods and friends.

See also: Horror films based on true stories

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